Rooney: Oakland doesn’t have to match Nevada’s offer

Posted by Mike Florio on October 19, 2016, 10:14 AM EST

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A fight is brewing over the potential move of the Raiders to Las Vegas, and the battle lines are beginning to be drawn.

While no owners have gone on the record to say that they oppose the move, the basis for eventual opposition is emerging, slowly. Steelers owner Art Rooney II, for example, has made it clear that Oakland can keep the team without coughing up three quarters of a billion dollars.

Via Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal, Rooney said that Oakland won’t have to match Nevada’s offer of $750 million in taxpayer money to keep the team. Which clearly implies that Raiders owner Mark Davis won’t be able to automatically make the move he already has vowed to make.

Oakland previously has brought nothing to the table to persuade the Raiders to stay. Per Kaplan, that could change. Which means that the entire Nevada flirtation could be more about squeezing cash out of Oakland and less about relocating to Las Vegas.

Ultimately, only nine votes will be needed to block the move. Which would mean that the Raiders will stay in Oakland — or that Davis will take a page from his late father’s playbook and sue for the ability to take the team wherever he chooses.

I’m sure he does want to stay in Oakland but that stadium is old as anything and sewage often leaks onto the field. Libby Schaarf is doing nothing to keep the team, the raiders want to stay thats why they keep signing 1 or 2 year deals to stay a bit longer in the hope a deal gets hammered out

The raiders are moving to Vegas one way or another and the league would be wise to just let them. Mark Davis will take this thing to the end of the earth to get what he wants after being shafted in the l whole LA deal. Stay tuned folks, this could get quite messy!

Maybe MD and some of the others should just break off completely and form their own league.
Sure the football wasn’t that great with the XFL & USFL but at least the players were allowed to play.
The NFL schtick is wearing thin. Right now we get 150 minutes of commercials with 60 minutes of football sprinkled in.

I have no skin in the game although think the move to Vegas is a win-win situation. I bet the league wants it to happen as well and all the controversy is a smoke screen to create the illusion of differing opinion for one reason or another.

NFL has made it obvious from day one that they want us at home in OAK.

Trading the #6 market in the country for the #47 also makes people who can do math nervous.

Stay pure ladies and keep playing house

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Keep on whistling past the graveyard, Spicoli. Yes, the Raiders currently reside in the #6 market. But guess what? The league will still have that market covered after the Raiders leave.

Las Vegas may be a small market in terms of population, but it prints money. Yes, business may be down there, but compared to Oakland, it’s Dubai.

And don’t talk to me about fans in seats. Fans are an annoyance to the league. Every fan that needs a seat just takes up space where the team could put a luxury box. You think they’ll have trouble selling out a few hundred luxury boxes in Vegas?

I think it’s cute that art rooney thinks he has any say on the matter. It will be a terrific day when that disgraceful family is out of the NFL. Same goes for the maras, the tischs, the johnsons, the biscottis, the richardsons, and the mcnairs.

750 million bucks can buy a lot of paper cups to tape to the ceilings to catch water on rain days at the arena right art Rooney? It’s embarrassing that professional teams are asked to play in that dump and even more embarrassing that they ask fans to pay to watch games there.

No wonder Al Davis had to sue the NFL. Who is Rooney to tell Mark Davis how to spend his own money. Oakland might be a bigger market on paper than Las Vegas, but there is huge potential for putting the Raiders in Vegas.

When have 9 NFL owners EVER blocked the chance to make more money? Hasn’t Al Davis already proven a team can be relocated without league approval? My wife has never been to Vegas and I haven’t in 15 years. We will be going when our Buffalo Bills play there. We will NOT be going to Oakland….

Another insignificant punk, Art Rooney the jr., trying to give the impression he is a mover and shaker. His only concern is that he can never move the Steeler’s so he doesn’t want another silver spoon to be able to move either. Especially into a lucrative market like Vegas.
It’s just a bunch of grown up spoiled brats puffing their chests. Rooney forgets that in another 30 years he is just going to be another dust pile like the rest of us.

Easy for Rooney to say. He has a city that supports his business and a stadium with working toilets.
Trade places and Rooney would be crying about Oaklands unwillingness to work with him and his need to ‘explore’ any and all options available for his team to be financially viable.

Why does my squad have to be owned by carpetbaggers that move from city to city every 15 years?

An NFL owner with an ounce of businsss savvy can find a group of investors to get a stadium built in the Bay Area. The biggest challenge is finding the land. The Raiders have the land. They play in the best location in California. A site that is connected to Amtrak, BART, and the Airport.

The Raiders are becoming the marquee team in the Bay Area with the 49ers moving to the South Bay and Jed York running them into the ground .

There’s millions upon millions to be made for the Raiders here. The problem is Mark Davis does not have any business sense – not an ounce of business savvy or vision. Thus he only sees the short money that a transient city in the middle of the desert has to offer. In which he will eventually be on the billionaire’s puppet strings. He can consider those millions of dollars Adelson is giving him a favor…..until Adelson needs a favor from Mark. Favor(s) that he can’t deny.

The next federal lawsuit could end up costing the independently operating & competing team owner$ (wink, wink) their precious anti-trust exemption in addition to hundred$ of million$. I wonder if the casinos are laying odds on whether Art II, Mara & their pal$ blink first.

As a lifelong Raiders fan this is gut wrenching. Since Goodell has been comish NFL tradition has slowly died. No matter what you think about the city, the Oakland Raiders have one of the richest sports traditions in NFL/Sports history, even during the suck years we still came/come out to see the Raiders. LA or Oakland the Raiders belong in California. Mark has said over and over that his first priority was to keep the Raiders in Oakland so in a way I can’t blame him. When/If the Raiders leave Oakland I don’t know If I have anything left in the tank for the NFL. For me this will be the final straw. I have watched the greed grow. I have watched the rules change for the sake of “safety” and I am tired of hearing about a team in London, screw that, nobody wants that, and I am tired of seeing commercials after every kick off and the flag fest every game. I am tired of seeing the rules skewed for the offense. Pretty much special teams and defense have been taken out of the game and it sickens me. This is Roger Goodells NFL and it makes me sick! I am an old school traditionalist and the NFL I know and love is dead. FU to Goodell and the greedy owners!

Just an FYI to those who approve of any sort of public welfare, whether its taxing of locals or visitors, to build/ renovate stadiums for the NFL: the Oakland Coliseum was renovated in the mid 90s to appease Al Davis in his return to the Bay Area. Alameda County taxpayers as of 2017 are STILL paying for those renovations and now the team demands to move.

Building a stadium for multibillionaires is a bad investment. Stadiums sit empty the vast majority of the year and employ mostly part time minimum wage workers.

Al Davis sued ans won to move his team. On another note, why wouldn’t the owners want them to move to Las Vegas?
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The NFL is very reluctant to put a team in a brand new market, billion dollar stadium, that has a long proven record for not being able to operate profitably and having half of its seats tarped up, which makes for bad tv.

Here’s what Rooney and the rest of the NFL doesn’t get.. yet. Oakland doesn’t want the Raiders. Libby Schaaf has had a Coliseum site development deal in place with Lew Wolff for awhile now. Lew made his bones in real estate development and he was a chief campaign contributor to Schaaf’s Mayor campaign. For the first time in the NFL’s existence a major market is essentially saying “go away” and they’re having a hard time processing it. Oakland’s offer is this.. Nothing. But, they will appreciate it if the NFL builds their own stadium thus paying the subsequent taxes as a result.

Rooney II is a scab, third generation Rooney. The Rooney family is built on gambling & loan sharking, etc & he will be damned if another tries to muscle in on his enterprising.
Rooney’s = Frauds.
Tennessee Titans ownership can’t be kept as is….which is exactly as the Rooney set up.
THEY SOLD THE STEELERS….but got bailed out by B BELL.
Black & Yellow, more like Mustard & Skidmarks.

Its really amazing how many of my fellow Raiders fans have NO idea what the situation with Oakland is. The mayor has publicly declared only the A’s are worth keeping. The door has been slammed shut on the Warriors and Raiders.

Even the price of the lease given on the sewage-spewing Coliseum is an FU. It’s not just that they’re not willing to play hardball to keep the team, they explicitly don’t want them around. There is nothing even distantly resembling a viable plan to keep the team in Oakland. If Davis suddenly found a billion dollars to build a stadium, the only land he’d be offered to build on would be a toxic waste dump the city hoped to trick him into cleaning up for them. I’d rather the team stay local too, but there’s just no path.

mullman76 says:
Oct 19, 2016 11:58 AM
Rooney, Mara and Kraft run the league.
The other owners are just window dressing and the commish is the lap dog.
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A convenient misconception, $ runs the league. All 3 along with Richardson, the head of the stadium committee, were in favor of the Carson stadium proposal rather than Inglewood. How did that work out?

Raider fans are so cute. They think that on Sunday’s, everybody will stop gambling to watch the Raiders. Newsflash, not happening. The casinos are and always will be the number 1 attraction in Vegas by a wide margin. A sub .500 football team? Not so much.

Raider fans are so cute. They think that on Sunday’s, everybody will stop gambling to watch the Raiders. Newsflash, not happening. The casinos are and always will be the number 1 attraction in Vegas by a wide margin. A sub .500 football team? Not so much.

Mark Davis can and should do whatever is best for his organisation, regardless of what other owners think or want. The Raiders and Al Davis memory deserve a great stadium and they arent getting it in Oakland. The effort there has lasted long enough. And the Raiders got the short end of the stick in the Los Angeles deal (to say the least), so its over with playing nice guy.

And financialy and politicaly speaking, Oakland obviously cant compete with Vegas. They can come up with the money without imposing a tax on there own people. I did some math;

There is north of 150,000 hotel rooms in LV. If the vacation rate is 25% annualy (lets say), with a 2.50$/night tax (lets say), it would take the blink of an eye (7 years) to payout that 750M$. The stadium would be built and Vegas would aready be halfway.

Thinking that Davis is just playing his cards here and waiting for best case situation is ludicrous. He might think he is, but unless he forges ahead like an outlaw and moves to LV, the league will do what’s best for the rest, and he will get what they decide he gets. Right now, that has sewage leaking on his mop top head.

Mark Davis will not sue or move if he doesn’t get the votes. He is not Al and doesn’t have the drive or desire to crush his opponent like Al did. Mark will play nice with the league he has already proven that when he allowed the other owners to tell him whay to do in terms of the L.A. market. The only way the Raiders move will be if the league signs off on it.

And if the Raiders do move to Vegas I give it 5 years before Mark is forced to sell the team to a group of billionaire casino owners headed by Sheldon Adelson

“Steelers owner Art Rooney II, for example, has made it clear that Oakland can keep the team without coughing up three quarters of a billion dollars.”

Translation: The City of Oakland does not have to present a matching $750M welfare check. What they do have to match is however much money the 31 other owners will receive from the move to Vegas – which is sure to exceed $15M per owner, from the relocation fee.

To the person that said “no one wants to move to Oakland”. Tell that to all the filthy rich people in the tech industry that are moving to Oakland gentrifying our city. Tell that to the landlords who are trying to evict their current residents so they can raise the rent by abouy 1500 dollars month to syphen money out these tech people that are moving to Oakland.

Oakland’s demographic is drastically changing. People who don’t realize that are out of touch with reality.

The city of Okland has always preferred the A’s over the Raiders so there is nothing new there. If you are a true Raiders fan you would know that there is no way the Raiders can compete on the long run attracting free agents and coaches if the facilities are so worn down like the ones in Oakland. The franchise value would multiply in Vegas and also would be on a state with a better tax situation.

Art Rooney II is an idiot. He is clearly behind the times. The deal Las Vegas came up with for the new stadium is amazing. Oakland won’t cough up one penny to help fund a new stadium. Las Vegas is where the money and growth is.

Many people in the southern Nevada region will attend games. Many Raider fans in L.A. will attend games. The economic potential is off the charts!!!!!!!!!!!

Please take your funnly looking self to Vegas, Oakland is Oakland because of the grit, the smash your face attitude and the rebel genetics; yes, you can get that in Vegas, but it will be through impersonation. Please leave quickly so we can get an owner who value spunk, not an idiot who looks worse than Trump!!

It’s amazing to me to read so many comments about Oakland and what they won’t do by people who either don’t live in Oakland or have never been to Oakland. Oakland’s taxpayers still owe over $100 million from renovations to the Coliseum in 1995 when the Raiders came back the last time. Would any of you encourage your city to add more tax dollars by financing another stadium? Lol, ok. The state of California does not provide funding for stadiums. Every stadium built in this century in this state has been built using private funds. The Golden 1 Center in Sacramento is financed in part by the city if Sacramento with the sale of bonds and the city is not increasing taxes. Mark Davis has never presented a plan with a developer to bring to the city. He wants a hand out and wants to do minimal work. If he was serious, he would’ve hired a developer and brought a financing plan to the city. It won’t matter because at the end of the day, the league wants the team to stay in Oakland and the Bay Area market and that’s what will ultimately happen. As far as nobody wanting to move to Oakland. Oakland has the 4th highest rent in the country. It has seen the largest rent increase in the world over the last year. Developers have gotten approval for many high rise apartment and condo projects. Again, you don’t live in Oakland nor have you been to Oakland. Talk about what goes on in your city and leave other cities business to them

The talk of market share is kind of disengenuis. First you have the 9ers in the area and LA San Diego in the state to boot. So this, oh the market will be lost is kind of BS.

The league under Goodall was absolutely hell bent to keep the Vikes in Minny. Same stadium issues.
Vegas has the same population as The Twin Cities. So you have pop to fill the stadium not ot mention many Oakland fans will still root for them and probably would get them on TV considering its PST.

Hey Goody makes sure us Central Time Zone people get all the Cowboy games. For some reason when the Vikes, Bears and Packers start at noon, Dallas conveniently starts at 3:30. Just to make sure they are on TV. So the league can do a lot of things to counter the market share bull.

I love my Raiders from Oakland to Los Angeles to Vegas it dont matter but I said from the start 2 years ago they aint moving no where..Davis said he couldnt wait to move to L.A..then San Antonio..now Vegas…get used to it just all about leverage the Raiders will stay in Oakland at least another 5 years so why bother bringing it up every week…case closed you heard it from me dont forget ..AGAIN !!